WAI - Jan 15 - We spoke to Mark Gainey, CEO and cofounder of Strava, a social network for athletes that makes use of GPS devices and other wearables to create what they call a "social fitness" experience. Strava uses the vast amounts of data being collected by various connected devices to provide motivation, track stats, record maintenance, and status of gear and equipment, and encourage camaraderie among its members.

In this interview, Gainey explained why he thinks wearables will continue to make fitness a more enjoyable and seamless part of our everyday lives.

How was Strava founded? What were your inspirations? Michael Horvath and I started Strava in 2009. We both rowed crew at Harvard in the late ’80s and thrived on the camaraderie and motivation of training with teammates. The idea for Strava came simply from our desire to recreate the positive forces of our crew experience when we no longer had the structure and support of a team.

In its simplest form, Strava was a "virtual locker room" where we could share workouts among friends. We started Strava with a focus on cycling, and added running in 2011. Since its founding in 2009, Strava has grown from a handful of users to millions of athletes around the world. Our mission is simple—to motivate and inspire our members in ways that unlock their potential.

Strava is known for being more than just a way to log workouts. It's a social fitness app that encourages users to connect with each other. As more and more people are buying and using wearable devices to track their fitness, what changes have you seen in how users are interacting in the Strava community?Millions of cyclists and runners around the world not only track and analyze their training with Strava but also use it as their social channel to connect with other athletes and stay motivated. Almost 90% of all Strava athletes follow another athlete on Strava, and the average Strava member engages with Strava 5-7 times a day. According to our members, "If it’s not on Strava, it did not happen."

Strava is growing rapidly and is truly global. We add over 100,000 new members every week, and almost 80% of our athletes live outside the US. We have activities on all seven continents and in over 180 countries.

We see our members interact with Strava in a number of different ways. We are now compatible with over 150 different GPS devices. So our athletes can track their activities in whatever way they find most convenient. And then they can seamlessly upload to Strava via our mobile apps and website.

What sets Strava above the competition?Talk to most of our competitors, and you’ll find they refer to their audience as users, not members. Talk to a Strava athlete on the other hand, and they will tell you they may have "downloaded" other fitness apps, but then they "joined" Strava. We are for more than an app. We are a community.

Strava designs products for passionate athletes. They love their sport, strive to improve, and want to connect with people who feel the same way. We feel that we’ve built the best home for this kind of athlete, and that’s what separates us from our competitors.

Our athletes are fully engaged, online and offline. They support each other on Strava. We have an inspirational, passionate community that I believe is unmatched.

Beyond smartwatches and fitness trackers, what other connected devices are being used with the platform, or would you like to incorporate in the future?We support data input from nearly 150 third-party devices, including everything from Garmin bike computers to Fitbit wearables and shirts with integrated sensors. We have built our own training apps for iOS, Android, Android Wear, and Apple Watch. This allows us to analyze everything from GPS data to physiology and nutrition data. As our athletes add more connected devices to their daily fitness lives, we are dedicated to helping them bring context and color to the information collected.

Where do you see the wearables market heading in the next 5 to 10 years, and how will Strava adapt to keep up?We see the integration of fitness sensors becoming even more seamless—in clothing, in bicycle frames, in running shoes, et cetera. And we expect these wearable devices to provide more in-depth data and feedback. With our focus on our passionate athletes, we will continue to design technology that provides motivation and inspiration for our members. Strava is always innovating to serve the athletes. We seek to inspire and unlock potential. We're a company full of athletes, so designing products that leverage our wealth of data and athlete insights to help athletes improve is at our core.

It's easy to feel overwhelmed with all the information coming at us, and the introduction of wearables and other connected devices has done little to help with all the mind-cluttering.

We spoke with Niina Venho, the CEO of Moodmetric, a smart ring that hopes to help users learn how to manage these overload stressors. She explains that the key to a more peaceful life is to track emotional levels, learn to calm the mind, and keep tabs of our emotional past.

Tell us the Moodmetric founding story. Why did you choose to focus on measuring emotions?People know a lot about their physics nowadays. We know our weight, pulse, heart rate variability, sleep patterns, oxygen saturation - and are very pleased to have all this information.

There are plenty of wearables that collect data about our physical performance, at Moodmetric we did not want to develop just another activity meter. Measuring our mind and emotions should be at least as important as measuring our physics, still there are not many devices to give us any of that information. We wanted to work on something that benefits anyone wanting to develop their mental capacities.

Our inventor, Henry Rimminen, has a long background in biosensor technology research. He was familiar with the skin conductance measurement used in psychological research, which tells about emotional levels of the wearer and is a perfect indicator of the emotional load. The equipment currently used for these measurements are clumsy and filled with wires. Henry´s idea was to combine it into a ring - what a perfect form factor for emotions!

We wanted to make a scientific sensor that was small, attractive, and looks more like a jewel. The opportunities in the emotion measurement are huge. There are application possibilities in many industries, for example in digital and mobile health, user experience analysis, content marketing, psychological and cognitive research, and workplace wellbeing.

Keeping Your Cool

What are the benefits of learning to calm your mind? Losing your temper is never the best course of action.

Uncontrolled behavior in the workplace is no longer tolerated. Abusive supervision or mean bosses cost close to $25 billion annually for corporations in the United States. Companies are looking for people that are emotionally balanced. Emotionally intelligent people build better relationships, have better communication skills, and they manage conflict more productively.

It is our responsibility to take care of our own emotional balance. It's not just about your personal benefit; your mood also affects others. Stress, self-awareness and emotional balance are closely connected. Understanding yourself is a tool that can be used to manage stress as well as any other emotion. The stress costs are six times higher. Absenteeism, diminished productivity, and on-the-job-accidents cost $300 billion annually.

Whatever you do in life, emotional intelligence is something that is important to build. Knowing how to get calm and stay calm when needed is a great place to start.

Who is your target market? Everyone looking to be better connected with their minds and wanting to build their self-awareness. For the most part, our current customers are research for us. We're using the opportunity to do skin conductance measurement in such a small and wearable form. We want to address the consumer market as well and believe everyone can benefit from a scientific emotion level tracking tool in nice little package.

Moodmetric is currently following a number of important trends, including biohacking/quantified self, corporate wellbeing programs taking mental health into consideration, mindfulness and meditation, as well as design wearables and smart jewellery.

Who are your notable competitors, and what sets you apart? There are other biofeedback devices said to train mental fitness and help cope with stress, many of them are based on heart rate variability measurements. Heart-rate variability is a good indicator of stress levels, but it is reliant on measuring heart rate, which is most accurately measured from the chest area. The signal then needs to be analyzed and filtered to understand how a person is reacting, while the skin conductance measurement directly tells the emotional activation level.

EEG measurement devices do help to calm the mind and they have great possibilities in brain and cognitive research. However, they require a headband with several contact points, and are unlikely to become popular for continuous daily use in the near future.

What sets us apart from the laboratory devices is that the Moodmetric ring measures skin conductance from where it is best to measure, from the palm side of the hand or finger, and can be used anywhere. Our reading is very accurate and it is live, continuously updated data can be seen on the smartphone app.

Looking To The Future

What do you see for the future of wearables, and what role does Moodmetric hope to play in that future? New devices are entering the market combining more measurements, and having more features. I feel that people are now testing many devices trying to figure out what works best for them. "Do I manage with one wearable or do I need several?" The novelty seekers are trying them all out.

Moodmetric aims to be the number one in measuring emotions and providing both the consumers and researchers a simple yet accurate tool for it. We are very open about others using the Moodmetric technology, we offer our development kit free and would like to build a whole ecosystem around skin conductance measurement. We hope to partner with other companies and innovators to build services around: mood monitoring, individual and workplace wellbeing, programs targeting to calm the mind, cognitive research, and much more.

How do you think wearables will change how we act and interact with those around us? My colleague does her 10,000 steps per day and I feel the need to manage the same, or, my husband tracks his sleep to perform better throughout the day, so maybe I should as well. Wearables have the potential to improve communication. For example, the Moodmetric ring can alert the family if the mother has had a very stressful day, or it can tell that grandpa is taking his daytime nap. The possibilities for improving interaction are simply endless. Wearable technology can ease our lives and make communication smoother in many ways. My personal wish is for us to still talk to each other!

TECHLICIOUS - Nov 29 - Misfit has launched the BaubleBar Helena Necklace and BaubleBar Helena Bracelet, both accessories include a locket that holds the thin Misfit Flash or Misfit Flash Link tracker beautifully concealed in a locket design that's both classic and modern. The piece also comes with an oval-link chain, 32 inches for the necklace or 6 inches for the bracelet.

INDIA TODAY - Nov 29 - Mio Global has entered the Indian market and launched a bouquet of products on Amazon India. The company has launched the Mio FUSE, Mio Alpha 2, and Mio LINK wearables in India starting at Rs.6,599. In the last 6 months global players in fitness wearables like FitBit and Jawbone have launched their products in India. Jawbone's products are available on Amazon India.

MOBILE COMMERCE PRESS - Nov 28 - It consists of a small clip-on device that can be attached to a bra strap or to the waist of a wearer's pants. This allows the device to track breathing patterns in order to determine whether the wearer is tense, focused, or calm. If the wearable technology detects too much stress, it sends an alert to the user's smartphone.

BIDNESS ECT - Nov 25 - In its last quarterly results, Fitbit reported above-consensus revenues and EPS, and posted a strong 4QFY15 guidance. However, the stock saw a sell-off, after the company’s management announced that it intends to sell 21 million shares in a secondary offering.

NASDAQ - Nov 24 - The new software update features a new SmartTrack feature with automatic exercise recognition and enhancements, that is, when wearing a Fitbit Charge HR fitness tracker or Fitbit Surge GPS watch, it automatically identifies exercises during workouts and records them to the Fitbit mobile app along with an exercise summary including information on time, calories burned and heart rate, thereby offering users praise for every active moment.

SCMP - Nov 22 - Ollinfit system is three small sensors, each containing an accelerometer that measures direction and speed of movement that are worn strategically depending on the exercise to accurately capture full range of motion. The app then crunches the data and gives instant voice prompt and vibration feedback on how to correct form.

QuardioArm is a blood pressure monitor that doesn't look like a medical device. It's a beautiful looking, compact device that works with Android and Apple Health and monitors heart rate, body temperature, stress level and respiratory rate.

iThermometer can wirelessly monitor real-time temperature and send the information to a smartphone. If temperature raises over a critical point, it sends an alert and tips on what to do. It is useful for children who are vulnerable to body temperature increases.

Zensorium claims to be able to tell good stress from bad as well as track heart rate, blood pressure and sleep cycles, it aims to track the user's emotions through heart rate monitoring and suggests deep breathing exercises when stress levels are high.

TECHCRUNCH - Nov 20 - There are no specific product areas being cut as part of this restructuring, the company will continue to sell its Jambox speakers and the Era headset, along with related accessories. Jawbone has been increasingly focusing is R&D, product and marketing attention on its range of UP fitness trackers. According to IDC‘s most current figures, for Q2, Jawbone sold just over half a million UP fitness trackers, ranking them number seven among top wearable device vendors and working out to a market share of only 2.8%.

ENGADGET - Nov 19 - The activity-tracking software now provides real-time distance, steps, pace and calorie stats for running, walking and riding workouts. When you come to a stop for some push-ups, sit-ups or squats, you can use your Android Wear device to keep a tally of your reps before adding the total to your daily activity log. Google Fit also pulls in sleep and nutrition info from other apps and fitness trackers.

MOBIHEALTH NEWS - Nov 18 - Five investors contributed to the round: Angel Plus, ChinaRock Capital, Ideosource, SV Tech Ventures and Zen Water Capital, in addition to some angel investors. The company will use the funds to expand marketing and research and development in advance of the launch of Pivot, its first planned product.

What inspired you to create this project?Fitness trackers have taken off in the last few years, but an entire population has been overlooked and excluded from this phenomenon and its associated positive impacts and potential. [It's] our attempt to fill this gaping hole in the market and provide wheelchair users around the globe with a fitness tracker.

What obstacles do people in wheelchairs find with typical fitness trackers, and how does this project approach those issues? Most fitness trackers use a pedometer, and the algorithm that they use to calculate things like caloric burn, etc. is based on the idea that you're using your legs. This clearly isn't an effective model for wheelchair users, who instead are utilizing their arms and muscle groups in their upper body.

By utilizing Hall Effect sensors, a barometer, a gyroscope and an accelerometer, we could gather all the critical info—speed, acceleration, distance, altitude, incline, and decline—to create a fitness tracker that's specifically geared towards wheelchair users.

What other applications do you see for the technology?Not only is every user enjoying the fitness-tracking benefits of the device on an individual level, but as they're moving they're automatically gathering and recording all kinds of important information about their environment that can benefit everyone. When aggregated, this data can be used for functions like terrain mapping.

What do you see for the future of wearables, and what's Chaotic Moon's place in it? We believe that the future of wearables is in seamless integration and in implementing the technology in a way that makes sense to the user, so that it works with them naturally and enhances, rather than complicates, their life. We're here to push not only ourselves, but the industry as a whole to rethink and redefine what's possible.

PRESS RELEASE - Nov 17 - Nautilus Venture Partners led the round with additional participation from Caerus Venture Partners who led their $1.6M Seed Round in 2014. The new financing will be used for expansion into retail for 2016 and to enhance Skulpt's mobile app functionality including personalized, data-driven fitness plans.

MOBILE ID WORLD - Nov 17 - Juniper Research predicts that the sector will see more than $10 billion in revenues from hardware by the year 2020, a major revision of a $3.3 billion estimate from earlier this year. The firm attributes much of the increase to wristband fitness tracking devices. But it also asserts that smart clothing is going to enjoy a higher profile as it becomes more deeply integrated in watching sports.

FINANCIAL CHRONICLE - Nov 15 - "We are working on watches and fitness bands which will be manufactured at our unit at Sri City in Andhra Pradesh and will be unveiled at Barcelona in February," said Gionee India CEO & managing director Arvind Vohra.

TECHCRUNCH - Nov 12 - Watchmaker Fossil Group will acquire Misfit for $260 million. Sonny Vu, CEO of Misfit, will serve as Fossil's CTO. The Company believes the acquisition provides the opportunity to integrate Misfit's software and hardware platforms in the next generation of connected accessories, further advancing Fossil Group's connected accessories initiative.

TECHNO BUFFALO - Nov 9 - The new device with the model number SM-R150 and the codename Triathlon is expected to take on competing products like Xiaomi's Mi Band. It’s also likely Samsung's fitness tracker will work with most Android devices, and not just its own Galaxy smartphones.

IT WORLD CANADA - Nov 9 - Gartner estimates that, by 2017, wearable devices will be leveraged in fewer than 10% of clinical trials. Success will hinge on the ability to integrate wearables with data exchanges and cloud-based analytics, and then connect to e-clinical systems. Since incorporating wearables into clinical trials will also require new processes and tools, new e-clinical partner models and technology partnerships will evolve. Wearables will require better hardware, better sensors, and tighter integration into a m-health ecosystem that provides industry standards for maintaining health data integrity and security.

ANDROID HEADLINES - Nov 7 - The fitness band, which does not have its own display, pairs to any Android or iOS device. Its functions include sleep tracking, heart rate monitoring, calorie burn counting, step counting and vibrating when the host device receives a notification.

MEDCITY NEWS - Nov 4 - The app connects with Carolinas' EHR and can pull in real-time data from at least 25 fitness trackers, plus three commercially available pulse oximeters and seven models of Bluetooth blood-pressure cuffs. It also syncs with RunKeeper to add workout data to the mix, according to Carolinas, and is integrated with health diary app Moves.